


Of Singing and Syringes

by neelie415



Series: Of Jack and Gabe [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Body Horror, I think that covers it, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Mild Language, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 00:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13800036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neelie415/pseuds/neelie415
Summary: The SEP ramps up Jack's injections and the side effects are terrible. Gabe helps him through it.





	Of Singing and Syringes

**Author's Note:**

> If there are any major typos please let me know! I don't have a beta reader but shout out to my friend Rachel for pushing me to actually finish something for once. It's 20colaborateen y'all! 
> 
> Also disclaimer: Everything I know about Overwatch comes strictly from playing the game. I've never read any of the comics or anything like that.
> 
> (these chapter titles are so extra oh my God)

The floor suddenly tilts under him, reminding Jack of a ride at the fair he went on as a kid. The experience had ended with him crashing headfirst into the safety railing and breaking his nose. Desperate to not repeat the same chain of events, Jack clutches at the wall. He isn’t some twelve year old kid anymore, laughing and trying to keep his feet. He’s a soldier who signed up to have experimental drugs and radiation pumped into his system.

Voluntarily. 

The injections were always bad, resulting in nausea, migraines, and a bone deep exhaustion that gradually receded with copious amounts of caffeine and adrenaline from sparring matches. But this, this was different. Jack presses his forehead against the cool wall and tries to get his breathing under control. His thoughts skip rabbit like through the stories he’s heard about the other candidates in the program who had bad reactions to the drugs and had to quit. Blackened limbs laced with veins thick from blood poisoning, vomiting a thick, black bile, biology fighting against the enhancements. Reyes had told him once that his last partner, a woman named Jemma had failed the program because of it. 

“All that hard work and,” Reyes had made a quick motion across his neck. “It was over.” 

The techs had upped Jack’s dosage this time around, saying that he had passed the first stage of the enhancements. They promised the weekend to recover before training resumed on Monday morning. His stomach gives a sickening lurch and Jack thinks that he’ll be lucky if he makes it through the rest of the afternoon, let alone the weekend. 

But he won’t give up. He’s worked too hard to get to this point and Jack isn’t going to let a bit of nausea and a headache get the best of him. He leans his forehead against the white plaster of the wall and focuses on breathing through his nose, counting to ten slowly.

“Morrison, look alive!”

Jack snaps to attention just as an uncomfortable pins-and-needles sensation blooms in his toes. Anderson Fletcher, the head of the SEP stands directly ahead of him, bureaucratic smile fixed in place but his dark, almost black eyes still held the same deadened look, like a shark. Jack finds his nausea returning to him for an entirely different reason. Of course the head of the program would find him when he’s a mess.

“How’re you feeling, son?” The older man asks. 

“Never better, sir,” Jack lies as the pins and needles begin to creep up his legs. 

“Good, good,” quips Fletcher. “We can’t have our Golden Boy falling just because of a few needles pricks.” He claps Jack on the shoulder and Jack feels every cell flinch at the sensation. “Keep up the good work, and maybe soon you’ll be even better than that partner of yours.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack replies hollowly and drags his arm up for a crisp salute. The movement makes the floor feel like it has a mind of its own again. Fletcher nods and continues on his way down the hall. Jack manages to hold the salute until the man disappears around the corner. When Jack collapses back against the wall, sweat and goosebumps have broken out across his entire body and he finds it difficult to think of anything other than how miserable he feels. 

But they are always watching. 

The candidates in the SEP are under constant surveillance, supposedly for their safety and for the safety of the scientists involved in the program. If a poor reaction to the drugs takes a quick turn for the worst, the cameras, combined with the comm that everyone is required to wear, allow for a quick response. Jack doesn’t want to risk the techs thinking that him slumping against the wall just down the corridor from medical constitutes as a “negative response,” so he stiffens his spine and puts one foot in front of the other, thinking only of the safety of the room he shares with Reyes. 

All the way on the other side of the campus. 

By the time he struggles back to the room, the pins and needles have spread throughout Jack’s entire body. He punches in the key code in the small apartment with a shaking hand and trips over his own feet, falling into the room. He tries to pull himself up, but his limbs refuse to move, protesting the tearing and reforming of their cells to artificially create more muscle mass. The door hisses shut behind him and Jack resigns himself to laying on the floor until he regains a small modicum of control.

Time passes slowly, leaving Jack plenty of time to think about his experiences at the SEP. The training exercises and programs aren’t so bad. The injections and frequent check up in medical, shivering in a thin paper hospital gown hadn’t even been particularly bad (“Until today,” Jack concedes as his skin grows unbearably hot). No, the hardest part of the SEP hands down has been trying to get to know his prickly roommate. 

No matter how hard Jack tried, Reyes sidestepped every question he asked. Each time Jack offered a piece of information about himself and paved the way for his roommate to reciprocate, Reyes generally ignored it or changed the subject. And of course his reluctance to share was nothing compared to his love for making fun of Jack at every chance he got. The barbs of “Golden Boy” and “Boy Scout” hit the hardest because they took things that Jack was proud of and twisted them into an insult. 

Jack passes more time trying to think mean thoughts about Reyes even though he knows that he’ll feel bad about it later. He tries for all of a minute but then remembers the slight twitch at the corner of Reyes’ mouth when Jack fixed him a cup of coffee one morning, just the way he liked it--too much cream and not enough coffee. Or how Reyes has started bringing food back to their shared space in case they don’t feel like going to the mess hall. 

“Shit, Morrison.” 

Jack had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t hear the door open. He opens an eye (When had he closed them?) and sees Reyes standing in the doorway, carrying two plates. He can’t summon enough energy to do anything more than mumble incoherently. 

Instead of the expected, “You look fucking awful,” Reyes disappears quickly from his sight and Jack hears the sound of the plates being set on the counter and the tap running. Reyes reappears, this time holding a glass of water. “Here, try and drink this,” he says, holding out the glass with one hand while helping Jack up with the other. 

When the world shifts from the horizontal back to the vertical, the nausea returns full blast. He takes a tiny sip of the water.

“They ramp up your injections?” 

“Yeah,” Jack mutters.

Reyes sighs heavily through his nose. “The first time they did that to me I was out of commission for a week.”

Jack blinks at him and tries to imagine Reyes as anything other than the strong man leaning over him and fails. He takes another sip of water but it tastes like blood. He spits it out without thinking, terror taking up residence in his already unsettled belly. But the water is still clear and has no trace of the red it tastes like.

“C’mon, cabrón,” Gabe sounds irritated and Jack wishes he hadn’t taken the injections at all. “Let’s get you in the shower. It always made me feel better.” 

The very thought of somehow peeling himself off of the ground is enough to make him whimper and Jack’s ears burn with embarrassment.Or maybe that was a fever taking hold.

Reyes sighs heavily again. “C’mon, cabrón,” he repeats, this time it sounds softer, lacking the hard edges he usually carries around with him. With a gentleness that would’ve surprised Jack if he hadn’t been so busy trying to vomit, Reyes scoops him up off of the ground, one arm behind his knees, the other just behind his shoulders and carries him into the bathroom. He kicks the toilet seat cover down and deposits Jack on it before reaching to turn on the shower. Jack watches him periodically test the water temperature before he is satisfied. 

“Alright, Morrison. In you get.” Reyes gestures at the shower.

Jack surveys the distance between him and the warm bliss and resigns himself to another embarrassing crawl. He starts to pick at the hem of his shirt but his fingers shake so much he can’t get a proper grip. Reyes rolls his eyes and huffs.

“Let’s not make a habit out of this,” he says gruffly, but helps Jack peel the shirt up and over his head. A few more maneuvers later and Jack more or less stands there in the nude, too tired and miserable to feel anything but the siren call of a warm shower. Reyes helps him stumble into the shower stall and yanks the curtain shut after him, leaving Jack alone. 

“If I leave are you gonna drown?” Reyes asks from the other side of the curtain.

Desolation grips at Jack’s gut at the thought of riding out the rest of this alone.

“Don’t go,” he chokes out. “Please.” He can be embarrassed about this tomorrow when he doesn’t feel like he’s dying. But now…

Another heavy sigh of Reyes. “Okay,” he says. 

Jack stands under the water and closes his eyes, trying to think of anything but the drugs in his system. On the other side of the curtain Reyes begins to sing in Spanish. 

“Thanks, Reyes.” Jack manages to mumble. 

“Anytime, Jackie,” Reyes responds. “And call me Gabe.”


End file.
